INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE






Perceptions of 'otherness' in the Mediterranean

A EUMENESS-MOST initiative organised by the International Institute of the Social Sciences, Foundation for International Studies in collaboration with the Arab Sociological Association. 27th - 29th November 1997 How individuals perceive others is often determined by cultural backgrounds and socio-political, ideological and religious frameworks. Such perceptions, one of the other, often become culturally embedded, laden with misleading content and images reaching beyond standardised mental pictures of individuals. Often they result in misunderstandings of ethnic, racial, religious and national groupings, causing social resentments. Some misunderstandings can generate misconceptions at four levels which percolate across national frontiers: Western perceptions of Arabic lifestyles; Arabic perceptions of Western lifestyles; Western reactions to Arabic perceptions of Western Lifestyles; Arabic reactions to Western perceptions of Arabic lifestyles. This conference aims at promoting understanding of the dynamics causing social misconceptions of Arabic alterity and seeks to set models for social transformations based on understanding differences without discrimination or prejudice. In collaboration with the Arab Sociological Association in Tunis and the Management of Social Transformations (MOST) programme of UNESCO, EUMENESS is planning this conference to set up a structure for policy recommendations to promote early education teaching-tools in combating social prejudices between the North and South shores of the Mediterranean.